New data: Thousands of children living in poverty

A report released Wednesday by the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin shows thousands of children in our region are living in poverty.

The poverty rate exceeds the national average in some counties. One in five American children lives in poverty.

The rankings by the Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation show child poverty rates have not improved since 2000. Researchers looked at data from the 2010 Census.

In New York, numbers are highest in Franklin County, where 29 percent of children are living in poverty. The rate drops to 22 percent in Essex County and 20 percent in Clinton County.

In Vermont, 27 percent of children in Orleans and Essex counties live in poverty. The number falls to 11 percent in Chittenden County, the lowest level in our region.

“If you don't have a place to live, it's hard to provide for anything else,” said Julia Paradiso, project director for the Committee on Temporary Shelter. It's hard raising children to begin with and then you have kids that don't have that sense of a place of belonging, a place or home to call their own. It's tough on them.”

Organizations like COTS are combating the growing trend. COTS marked 30 years at a benefit in Burlington on Wednesday night. They have raised about $60,000 for programs to keep people in their homes.

“If you're out on the street, you're traveling to a place to get a meal, or you're waiting to get those meals at school and you're hungry,” Paradiso said.

Dorigen Keeney, program director for Hunger Free Vermont, is working so students do not go hungry.

“We’ve seen a pretty steady increase of children going hungry since about 2000 in Vermont,” Keeney said.

Hunger Free Vermont works to make sure communities provide students with healthy food options. Almost half of Vermont school children eat a free-or-reduced meal at school.

That’s because food, Keeney said, is often the last thing in a family’s budget.

“We’re looking at a generation of kids who are not going to reach their potential, and they themselves are going to live in poverty,” Keeney said.

A hungry child can lead to health and education problems too, Keeney said.

The top factors Keeney and Paradiso attribute to growing child poverty are unemployment and high cost of living.